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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0310 Friday, 12 June 2009
[1] From: Markus Marti <
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Date: Wednesday, 10 Jun 2009 21:45:30 +0200
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
[2] From: David Bishop <
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Date: Wednesday, 10 Jun 2009 21:54:53 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
[3] From: John Zuill <
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Date: Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 16:11:27 +1000
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0290 The Hounds of Theseus
[4] From: Jim Ryan <
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Date: Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 06:24:48 -0400
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Markus Marti <
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Date: Wednesday, 10 Jun 2009 21:45:30 +0200
Subject: 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
Single real dogs on stage are always fun and provide opportunities for
great comic interaction and improvisation, cf. The Two Gentlemen of
Verona. But I don't think that the dogs in MND were "only stuck in to
set the groundlings rolling around the aisles laughing", as Robin
Hamilton suggests.
Stage directions like "from hunting" may always be an indication that
real dogs were brought on stage (e.g. in Tempest, 4.1.254, Titus
Andronicus II.2, II.3; Taming Ind.), although Dessen/Thomson (A
Dictionary of Stage Directions . . .) only suggest that the noise was
"made within" (as in a SD in the Quarto of Merry Wives, 5.5.102). If
available, a whole pack of well trained hunting dogs on stage would have
pleased the aristocracy more than the groundlings; hounds were status
symbols (cf. Sonnet 91); they were judged not only for their hunting
skills and the colour of their fur but also for the tune of their
barking, their "sweet thunder", which had to fit to the sound of horns
and the song of birds to create a melody that made every hunter's heart
leap for joy. It is difficult for us to share this 'musical' taste, but
if we imagine a cultural context in which such a sound could have
pleased people's ears, we may well assume that it also stimulated other
parts of their bodies.
Strangely, though, as we can see in MND and in a similar situation in
Titus Andronicus II.3.10ff, the combination of bark, horns and bird's
twitter was not meant to stimulate lust but rather to help against
postcoital tristesse: For Tamora this music would provide an ideal
lullaby (!!!) AFTER an amorous adventure in a pastoral setting.
Therefore, if real dogs had been chosen for this scene in MND, these
"supernumeraries" would have induced 'high' aesthetic pleasure rather
than 'base' erotic stimulation or even 'baser' comic effects.
Markus Marti
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Bishop <
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Date: Wednesday, 10 Jun 2009 21:54:53 -0400
Subject: 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
To add a little to the many good comments already made about Theseus,
Hippolyta and the hounds, we might see one key in Orlando's remark, in
TN, that "my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,/E'er since pursue me."
The Shrew also offers a friendly disagreement about hounds as a trope of
aristocratic conversation.
As the fairies end their night watch by putting the lovers to sleep with
magic music, the day shift of the earthly rulers begins by waking the
lovers with hunters' horns. Fortunately not all the night's magic has
worn off.
The hounds are "Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,/Each
under each". Though of Spartan blood they are slower and more musical,
their slowness all the better for appreciating their music, which seems,
for Theseus, the point of the hunt. He's an Athenian who though a proven
warrior appears to be more concerned, now, with demonstrating the arts
of peace. Each under each in harmonic discord they echo the hierarchy,
of mechanicals -- lovers -- rulers -- fairies, whose clashing desires
resolve in the end into such sweet harmony.
The hounds' "musical discord" echoes the amazing "gentle concord" in
which the sleeping lovers are discovered, when they had hated each
other, the "concord of this discord" sought by Theseus in the "tragical
mirth" of the play, and before all, the new amity of Oberon and Titania.
A world at peace, like un-Spartan Athens, which needs to find ways to
"ease the anguish of a torturing hour" between supper and bed, will
appreciate plays like this one, where divertingly discordant desires are
brought into harmony, with the grace sometimes required to augment
effort with imagination, and understand that lovers' quarrels help keep
love awake.
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: John Zuill <
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Date: Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 16:11:27 +1000
Subject: 20.0290 The Hounds of Theseus
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0290 The Hounds of Theseus
In directing MSND, I treated it as a convivial rivalry, two people in a
forced marriage (from Hippolita's point of view) feeling their way
toward an understanding of some kind. Obviously, Hippolita's pals have
better dogs. But Theseus gets a minor victory by saying his are more
tuneful. That's useless in a hunting dog, but he perhaps wins because
the marriage is moving from being a political responsibility to being a
pleasant necessity. So compromises are the order of the day. Neither
Theseus or Hypolita really want to make this marriage intolerable, even
though it's not a marriage of love. His dogs are not good hounds but
they look nice and the sound great. A bit like the stage play that comes
later which also confirms Hip and Thes in conviviality through their banter.
I had them played as very imperious and really they are the only ones
who could marry each other. Who but Theseus could possibly marry the
queen of the Amazons? Theseus is an impossible bore perhaps and the
lovers make a welcome break from his nonsense. Hypolita isn't too much
better. She knows all the gossip about Theseus. It's possible that they
have slept with Titania and Oberon. The odious incest of celebrity.
Theseus's mundane chatter about hunting also reminds us that the magic
changes and creation of new romantic circumstances is over. We are back
in the real world. In the fairy world, reality and imagination are the
same thing. In the real world, reality is dull but imagination saves us
from the evenings boredom of the company of a stodgy old king.
Imagination, in the real world, distains to associate itself with the
drudgery of existence. But it is never hard to approach it's welcome
release from the dull boring world. The mechanicals take us to
imagination's simple place of inventive privilege. Far from royalty's
vain political efforts and boring dogs.
That's my take.
[4]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jim Ryan <
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Date: Thursday, 11 Jun 2009 06:24:48 -0400
Subject: 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0302 The Hounds of Theseus
Paul Swanson asks what contribution the talk of hounds makes to the
theme of MND. The symmetrical structure of the play casts some light on
how the passage functions. The music of the hunt-the hounds and
horns-occurs in the central episode of the third-last scene (4.1) and
constitutes a prologue to the awakening of the lovers, which ends the
hallucinatory forest sequence. In the corresponding episode of the third
scene, Oberon orders Puck to fetch the flower love-in-idleness,
initiating the forest madness. Characteristically, Shakespeare begins
and ends a significant action in paired scenes. The five episodes of
each scene:
2.1 Puck tells Fairy of Oberon's anger toward Titania (1-59)
4.1 Bottom & Titania fall asleep (1-45)
The contention of Oberon & Titania (60-145)
Oberon restores Titania (46-103)
Oberon sends Puck for flower to anoint Titania's eyes (146-87)
Theseus & Hippolyta wake lovers (104-86)
Demetrius and Helena squabble (188-246)
Lovers puzzle over their "dream" (187-99)
Oberon & Puck take flower to anoint eyes (247-68)
Bottom puzzles over his dream (200-19)
The central episode of 2.1 begins with Oberon's memory of a mermaid
singing on a dolphin's back and continues with the incident of Cupid's
"love-shaft. Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon." After the
musical hounds and horns of the central episode of 4.1, Demetrius
exclaims that some power has melted his attraction for Hermia and
returned his love to Helena. We are invited to remark the musical
preludes of the episodes and their contrasting "courtships"-the singing
mermaid and the baying hounds, the ineffectual Cupid and the
newly-faithful Demetrius. Basically, the reflecting episodes express yet
another variation of Shakespeare's frequent contrast between moony and
aggressive love, as the dreamy Romeo, absent from the opening-scene
brawl of R&J, becomes the committed lover who kills Paris in the last
scene. In context-the context of episode, scene and symmetrical
reflections-the slightly discordant dialogue of Theseus and Hippolyta
sounds the prelude to a restored love, signals the end of the dreamlike
forest sequence and provides an alternative to Oberon's fairyland vision
of Cupid.
Tallyho!
Jim Ryan
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